loud alarms calls of Blackbirds draw my attention to a place in neighbor´s garden. First I saw a moving wing – white with black pattern. Then the moustache. Hey, this is a female Common Kestrel, Falco tinnunculus, feeding on a Eurasian Blackbird. The dead Blackbird had been accidentally trapped by a fruit net, provided to protect garnet berry, Ribes rubrum, from marauding birds.
Just after I showed up, the kestrel flew away with a piece of his prey in her bill. But only after a while she came back and hung down at the wrapped bird. Unfortunately, I could not reach the neighbor’s yard. Ok, the bird was dead, but it could have been that even the Kestrel gets tangled in the net. Finally, the neighbor had seen the incident and also untied the dead blackbird off the net. A little later I could see the kestrels, as she was feeding with relish the blackbird-meal on a stone wall. Finally, she flew away, not without being aggressivly harassed by the excited fellows of the dead blackbird. Other shootings of that session you can see in the gallery under: www.bird-lens.com.
Common Kestrels eat almost exclusively mouse-sized mammals: typically voles, but also shrews and true mice supply up to 75 % or more of the biomass . Urs N. Glutz von Blotzheim wrote in his „Handbuch der Vögel Mitteleuropas“, Band 4. Falconiformes that there area 60 species of passerine birds has been proved being prey of the kestrel. During the breeding season small birds – mainly passerine – may make up the bulk of its diet because unexperienced fledglings are abound.
Cherries, plums and berries … Sparrows, Starling and Blackbirds love fresh fruit. To protect the fruit harvest fruit growers and home gardeners use nets. But be careful of the use of cheap bird netting from supermarkets and hardware stores. Bird nets can quickly turn into a cruel death trap for birds and even hedgehogs. The animals get tangled in the nets and then die in agony. Tips for how to deal with fruit protecting nets are in general:
Use only soft or woven nets in bright colors. The finer, darker and sharper the threads and the larger the diameter, the more dangerous is the network for birds. The nets must be installed correctly and properly tensioned. The ends should be rolled up to the protected culture, so that no loose parts touching the ground. To save hedgehogs and birds caught in time, the nets should be checked regularly. At the beginning of the harvest, the net devices have be removed immediately again. (Source: German Animal Protection Association)